


Arch Of Unimagined Bridges

by winter156



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 04:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13356693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter156/pseuds/winter156
Summary: Hecate turns herself away from Pippa’s exit. She can’t watch as she allows Pippa to walk out of her life again.





	Arch Of Unimagined Bridges

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even really go here, but I was intrigued by this pairing. And I really just wanted to explore an alternative scenario where Hecate doesn't immediately reciprocate Pippa's words, and also delve a little bit into a deeper reason why there was a breaking of the relationship in the first place.

“I’ve missed you, Hiccup.” The sadness and longing and the smallest hint of hope hanging on Pippa’s words slam into Hecate.

Hecate knows that words have the power to make things true if they’re said right. It’s what magic is, at its very core: it’s words said at the right moment, in the right way, in the right tone. These words, said now, in the way Pippa has exposed her whole self in saying them, upend Hecate’s perception of the last thirty years.

Everything inside her expands, pressing painfully against her chest and her skin and her eyes. And, she chokes on all the words that want to escape her mouth. Hecate, who is never lost for words, who is never found without a sharp retort, stands mum and unmoving. She’s rooted before Pippa like a cold, immovable slab of marble seemingly unfeeling and unaffected.

For all her acumen and knowledge of the Craft, Hecate can’t force the words she needs to say past the lump in her throat.

The moment is interminable and suspended in tight silence until a soft sigh breaks them free. Pippa smiles wanly, eyes sad but hard, cynicism settling too harshly across the planes of her face. She shrugs but the motion is graceless and jerky. “You were my best friend,” Pippa’s voice is soft but the words are sharp and pointed in accusation.

The rawness of Pippa’s voice makes Hecate want to turn away from her, but she only averts her gaze. She doesn’t turn away; she takes Pippa’s anger and sharpness head on.

She deserves the pain of reopened wounds. She deserves Pippa’s hate.

“What a fool I was to believe in the concept.” Bitterness makes Pippa’s voice hard. “To believe in you,” she whispers, her voice cracking, “to believe in us.”

Underneath the cynicism, there’s pain and resignation in Pippa’s voice. It makes Hecate have the sudden impulse to flee; she ignores the hum of magic in her veins ready to transfer her anywhere else but here. She tenses her jaw and fists her hands against the overwhelming urge.

Hecate inhales sharply at the unexpected feel of Pippa’s fingers gently coaxing her tilted chin back so her gaze is fixed on Pippa. Hecate reins in the desire to press into Pippa’s touch, she ignores the ravenous hunger to revel in the feeling of warm fingers pressing gently against her face, she swallows the words that clatter against her teeth. Instead she focuses on the devastating heartbreak in Pippa’s eyes. She trembles, a cold sweat breaks out across her back, and a leaden ball settles painfully in her stomach.

“I’m tired of being that sad, little witch waiting for her best friend to come back and unbreak her heart.” Pippa’s lips tighten to thin displeasure, her heartbreak clearly evident on every part of her face before a cold, indifferent mask settles firmly across her features. “Goodbye...” She lets go of Hecate’s face slowly and straightens. “...Hiccup.” She whispers the nickname, her breath hitching at the syllable. She says it as if she won’t ever say it again: reverently and sadly, with all the emotion her face doesn’t show.

Hecate breathes out harshly through her nose. Her heart beats loudly in her ears. But, she says nothing, she does nothing.

Pippa doesn’t transfer out; she turns and walks away. 

Hecate’s fingers itch to reach out to Pippa’s retreating form. She wants to take Mildred’s uninvited and unasked for opportunity to bridge three decades of silence. But stubbornness straightens her spine; shame keeps her silent. Hecate turns herself away from Pippa’s exit. She can’t watch as she allows Pippa to walk out of her life again.

Pippa’s fading steps echo loudly against the stone walls. The gaping silence left in the room is a living thing that suffocates Hecate. She can’t catch her breath and her heart constricts mercilessly in her chest.

She flees to the privacy of her own quarters where the silence and emptiness are familiar. She paces aimlessly trying desperately to quell the unsettled feeling inside her whole being.

The tears come unbidden and unexpectedly. They surprise Hecate, she didn’t think she had anymore tears left to cry over Pippa Pentangle. But now that they’ve started, the tears won’t stop coming. For the first time in many years, Hecate allows herself to weep. She cries until she’s slipped to the floor and curled in on herself. She cries until she’s spent and exhausted. She cries until years of pent up grief have emptied themselves in her tears. She cries until she’s empty and blessedly numb.

She stays on the hard floor letting the cold stone press harshly against her body.

She doesn’t notice the blood on her hands until she wipes at the wetness on her face. She sits up slowly, her mind in a muted haze. She stares at her hands in confusion. Each hand has four crescent punctures bleeding across her palms.

Hecate doesn’t heal them. She thinks them a fitting metaphor for her life: unintended damage and the bloody aftermath.

* * *

Hecate holds the box in her lap, her knuckles white and her grip tight. She can feel the scabs on her palms opening at the force of her grip. She presses harder and lets the pain wash over her, lets it momentarily silence the doubts in her mind. Blood stains her palms and the outside of the box. Her grip only tightens.

She squeezes her eyes shut and breathes out a heavy sigh.

Pippa’s words bounce around in her head and tug at issues she thought long settled. They needle at her resolve and make her question so many things. Hecate opens her eyes and looks at the box. She worries her bottom lip.

Guilt presses against the edges of her mind and she has to be sure. She has to be sure she made the right choice.

She wants to be brave but her resolve falters the longer she stares at the box. She hasn’t opened it in over thirty years. Not since she stuffed the broken pieces of her heart in it and closed the lid. _Forever_...she had thought at the time. But here she is again, and for the same reason: Pippa.

She takes a deep breath and expels it slowly. Her hands, streaked red, shake as she removes the lid.

Everything is there, exactly as she left it when she was fifteen.

The pain is instant and her heart aches at the reminder of it. But, there’s also a softness—that Hecate hadn’t anticipated—as bittersweet memories flood her mind. Because Pippa was her sun and she was vibrant and full of life and she used to be Hecate’s center. 

It’s a shock to her system, after so many years of trying to forget, to remember what the sun looked like, what so much light in her life felt like. It’s blinding at first, and she has to look away. She’s learned to live in darkness, out of the consuming and blinding light of Pippa’s presence.

When she looks back, her heart becoming accustomed to the ache of remembering, she can’t help the small smile that tugs at her lips. They were so young and so beautiful together. Hecate can admit that. Together, they were perfect.

Until they weren’t.

Hecate whispers a spell to clean the blood off her hands before tracing the final remnants of her friendship with Pippa. Her fingers move delicately and carefully as if to not break the remnants of them further. They aren’t much, just small mementos that she couldn’t discard even though she felt betrayed and gutted by Pippa.

Hecate thinks that’s what makes love hard to feel, to understand, to explain: it wants to hold on and let go at the same time.

She shakes herself. Even if love is the whole and more than all, hers was never enough. Not to the person she wanted it to be, anyway. Hecate ignores the painful beating of her heart against her chest.

She reaches for the letter that shattered her heart all those years ago. Cold dread stiffens her spine when her fingers trace the paper. Hecate doesn’t have to open it to _feel_ what she couldn’t at fifteen. Her stomach drops.

She immediately and acutely _knows_. She can feel it at the tips of her fingers. She’s spent decades honing that power to do her will. It’s her family’s magic. It’s her father’s magic.

The letter is enchanted.

Hecate sits frozen, fingers clutching the letter tightly. Blood rushes loudly in her ears and her heart would beat out of her chest if not for her ribcage. Heat blooms across her back and face and rage settles low in her belly. She tastes iron in her mouth and she feels her magic sing with hate.

She stands mechanically and opens the letter with controlled fury. Blood seeps in small spots onto the paper from her palms.

Hecate dispels the enchantment and the world falls away from her.

She was wrong.

She’s been so wrong for so long.

* * *

It isn’t until a week later that Ada gently asks to see her hands. Hecate hesitates before opening her hands, palms up, to Ada’s inspection. They’re jagged, red, and still bleeding because Hecate both accidentally rips them open and intentionally picks at them.

Ada sighs but her gaze is soft and understanding when she looks up at Hecate. 

Hecate looks away; she’s frayed at the edges and the kindness in Ada’s eyes makes her insides tremble. She deserves no kindness.

“You don’t have to pay penance,” Ada’s voice is as soft as her eyes. Her magic is warm and soothing against Hecate’s skin. “Not forever,” she adds after a moment, her eyes on the delicate hands in hers.

“I think,” Hecate says, her voice wavering, “I made a terrible mistake.” She immediately wants to retract the too revealing words, but Ada squeezes her healed hands and Hecate knows she understands and doesn’t judge her.

“Mistakes can be rectified,” Ada says gently, her eyes warm and knowing. “If one is brave enough to try.” She pats Hecate’s arms before she walks away.

* * *

Hecate purposely attends the opening ceremony and dinner of the conference. She knows Pippa will be in attendance. So she suffers the crowd and the small talk. And, she waits. And waits. And waits.

When Hecate spots her, she knows Pippa has actively avoided her. It makes her heart hitch in uncomfortable dissatisfaction but her face remains calmly placid. She strides toward Pippa and stops when she reaches the blonde.

“Miss Pentangle,” Hecate says but Pippa’s turning away before her name is all the way out of her mouth. Her stomach knots painfully.

Pippa doesn’t acknowledge her. She turns and brushes past Hecate as if she weren’t there at all. She doesn’t even make eye contact.

Hecate’s hands ball into fists but she doesn’t turn to follow Pippa.

She has been summarily and icily ignored.

Hecate stands still for a moment before lifting her chin and walking out. Her pride will not let her bend here again.

She can’t fault Pippa. But, it still cuts her deeply.

Hecate doesn’t look back. She doesn’t see Pippa turn regretful eyes at her retreating back.

* * *

Hecate picks up her pride and retreats to lick her wounds. She waits to try a second time when there’s less chance of being publicly humiliated.

“Miss Pentangle,” Hecate calls to a quickly retreating figure.

Pippa’s steps seem to quicken and she gets further away from Hecate.

“Pippa please,” Hecate’s voice bounces off the walls, the frustration and desperation evident in those two words.

Pippa stops. When she turns, her face is blank except for an eyebrow lifted in annoyance. Hecate approaches cautiously.

“Miss Hardbroom,” Pippa’s voice is brittle, “what would people think if they heard you call me with such familiarity?” She crosses her arms and stares at Hecate. “They might mistake us for something resembling friends.”

The pointed jab makes Hecate flinch but she quickly schools her features to hide the pain the words cause. She opens her mouth to respond in kind, but closes it quickly. She deserves this Pippa.

Pippa lets out a low sigh and pinches the bridge of her nose. “What do you want, Miss Hardbroom? I really must get back.”

Hecate takes a deep breath. “I want to try and explain.”

“Explain what exactly?” Pippa’s eyes shine brightly and Hecate doesn’t know how to interpret their meaning.

“Us.” Hecate shakes her head. “Me…” She closes her eyes and tries to get the right words out. “Why I let you walk away from me.”

“Is that how you saw it?” The question is sharp and pointed and angry. “Me walking away from you?” She advances on Hecate, quick strides closing the distance between them. And Hecate has to tamp down on the urge to step back from her, because Hecate is powerful but she knows Pippa has always been powerful in her own right and she has anger on her side. But, Pippa stops well outside of Hecate’s personal space, even though her presence fills up all the space between them. “I didn’t walk away from you, Hecate,” she spits the name out, “I was left behind by you. Tossed aside like something invaluable. Thrown away. _You_ left _me_ , not the other way around.”

Guilt stabs at Hecate hot and sharp. It prickles all over her skin and constricts her chest. “I didn’t—“

“You did,” Pippa cuts her off, her anger simmers down to an aching sadness. And that’s infinitely worse. “You did, Hecate.”

Silence descends heavily between them.

“I don’t require an explanation,” Pippa breaks the silence. Her eyes are closed and her body is half turned away.

Hecate knows she’s lying. She reaches a tentative hand to bridge the distance between them, to bridge three decades of time, to bridge silence and misunderstanding. Hecate gently takes Pippa’s hand in hers and it feels like waking up to a new morning, her whole world suddenly and brilliantly lightened.

“I’d like to give you one just the same.”

* * *

They transfer to Hecate’s private quarters.

Hecate ignores the nervous flutter that having Pippa in her private space causes. She tries not to think about what Pippa thinks about her sparse and austere living space. She tries not to think about how closely that reflects her life.

Instead, Hecate busies herself with getting the letter and handing it to Pippa.

She looks at it and twirls in in her hands. “What is this?”

Hecate looks at the letter between Pippa’s hands and wants to obliterate it into nothing, wants it never to have existed. “It’s why,” she says simply. At Pippa’s raised eyebrow, she expounds. “It’s why I thought you didn’t want me anymore.” She can’t look at Pippa as she puts it into words. “I thought it’s what you wanted…after…after we’d crossed those lines that couldn’t be uncrossed.”

Pippa’s furrowed brows further convince Hecate of how wrong she was. There is no spark of recognition at the letter. Pippa never even knew it existed. Hecate feels hate and sorrow war inside her. She wasted so much time, she caused so much heartbreak, for nothing. Her stomach rolls and she has to will herself to keep her emotions off her face.

Pippa raises a brow at the bloodstains on the paper but opens it and begins reading it. Hecate can see the color draining from Pippa’s face. She stops pacing and sits heavily on a nearby chair. 

Pippa clutches the letters with white-knuckled fists and Hecate wonders how the paper doesn’t tear in half at the force. Pippa looks at her with an unreadable and piercing look. Hecate clasps her hands to keep from fidgeting.

“How could you think I wrote this?” There’s no inflection in the question, no indication of what Pippa thinks or feels.

“I—”.

“Why didn’t you ask me?” Pippa speaks over Hecate’s attempt to explain, anger colors the question. Pippa stands and advances on Hecate. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

“I…” Hecate starts again, face scrunched, voice pinched. She stops and turns before turning back. She wants to pace but stands stills, anxious energy coming off her in waves. She wrings her hands. “I was your best friend,” Hecate says slowly, almost too softly. But Pippa is leaned in and listening. More still than Hecate can ever remember her being. Waiting. “You, Pippa…you were my only friend,” Hecate’s voice cracks. “You were my everything.”

Pippa’s sharp inhale is audible in the quiet that has settled between them.

Hecate tries to put her thoughts into words. “Even if I would’ve had someone else to share what we’d done, what we’d become to each other, I would’ve never shared you with anyone.” Pippa’s eyes shine but she says nothing. “No one else but you and I could’ve known about that night.” Hecate looks away from Pippa, her hands balled in tight fists. “I just thought it was a mistake to you and that this was your way of telling me to stay away from you.”

The silence that settles between them is full of words that neither of them know how to speak.

“I never threw you away, Pippa,” Hecate says softly, her voiced pained. “I thought…”

“You stupid, silly creature,” Pippa cries before she grabs Hecate by the edges of her collar and pulls her into a hard kiss.

Hecate’s nerve ending explode with sensation; she’s overwhelmed into stillness. She doesn’t realize she hasn’t responded until Pippa is pulling away with a concerned look on her face. She quickly steps into Pippa’s space and pulls her to herself before finding lips that remind her of sunrises and sunsets that brighten her whole landscape.

Tears prick Hecate’s eyes and a happy laugh bubbles up from her heart as their kisses melt into a firm, warm embrace. Hecate’s heart beats wildly in her chest. She holds Pippa tightly afraid to let go.

“Oh, Hiccup,” Pippa sighs.

Hecate revels in the simple feel of her after so long.

“I’ve missed you, too, Pipsqueak.”

* * *

“Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear.”

-ee cummings 

 


End file.
